Top Court To Probe Pakistani Investigator's Death

January 23, 2013

Policemen shift the dead body of Kamran Faisal, who was investigating a corruption scandal involving Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf and was found dead in a government hostel in Islamabad on January 18.

Pakistan's chief justice has ordered an investigation into the death of an official probing a corruption scandal involving the prime minister.

On January 23, Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry ordered two judges to form a new bench to look into the death of Kamran Faisal, who was found dead in a government hostel on January 18.

Initial findings of an autopsy said that Faisal committed suicide but his family and colleagues rejected the findings and opposed a government-appointed judicial probe.

Faisal, a young official of the National Accountability Bureau, was investigating allegations that corruption was involved in government contracts to buy electricity from private power plants in 2009.

The scheme was presented as an effort to reduce Pakistan's crippling energy shortage but was later criticized for being involving massive graft.